Orkney Islands Regional Marine Plan
This plan covers the management of the Scottish Marine Region for the Orkney Islands. It guides and supports decision making for development and use of the sea, and represents the second tier of marine planning, following on from the National plan.
Section 4: Monitoring, Evaluation and Review of the Plan
4.1 In accordance with the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, the Plan will be kept under review and a report detailing this review will be published a minimum of every five years from the date of the Plan’s adoption. The Plan will be kept under review with regards to the effects of the policies and their effectiveness in securing the Plan’s objectives. This review process will be informed by monitoring and evaluation of the Plan’s effectiveness using an appropriate framework and indicators.
4.2 This Plan includes a vision and an aim, guiding principles, objectives, and general and sector policies that support the delivery of sustainable development in the Orkney Islands marine region. It provides a policy framework to enable public authority decision makers to determine authorisation and enforcement decisions and make other decisions capable of affecting the marine environment. Decision making, compliance and enforcement are essential to the effective implementation of the Plan[134], and these functions rely on the participation of regulating authorities, developers and other plan users.
4.3 It is necessary to analyse and assess the extent to which the Plan’s vision, aim and objectives are being met. This process of monitoring and evaluation will require the identification of relevant indicators and the collection of associated data. The Maritime Spatial Planning Programme on evaluating marine spatial plans[135] provides guidance on setting indicators for monitoring and evaluation purposes. The setting of criteria and indicators will be guided by the objectives of the Plan and will be informed by the Orkney Islands Marine Region: State of the Environment Assessment[136].